1852] THE COALITION MINISTRY 213 IT CHAPTER XII THE COALITION AND THE CRIMEAN WAR lition Min T was not difficult to get rid of Lord Derby and Disraeli; it The Coawas less easy to replace them. The Whig party did not pos- istry sess a majority; still less did the Conservatives; but the latter had buried Protection; and there seemed, therefore, no adequate reason why the breach of 1846 should not be healed and why the Peelites should not join forces with Lord Derby. Had they done so, it is not impossible that the Crimean War might have been avoided. They preferred, however, coalition with the Whigs. But who was to form and lead their new Ministry? Lord John was the acknowledged leader of the largest section of the House of Commons, but there can be no doubt that in rejecting his claim the Crown represented an all but universal sentiment. "Lord John will never again unite us, take my word for this." So Roebuck wrote to Graham.1 Palmerston "could feel no confidence in his discretion or judgment as a political leader and could place no trust in his steady fidelity as a colleague". The Queen, interpreting the situation with her unfailing discrimination, summoned two veteran Peers, Lord Lansdowne and Lord Aberdeen. The former was prevented by illness from obeying the summons, and Lord Aberdeen, yielding to the strong wishes of the Sovereign, of his friends, and of Lord Lansdowne himself, agreed to form a coalition Government. "The arrangement of offices under the Junction company has been very difficult." Thus wrote Lord John to Lord Panmure.2 That it was so was due primarily to the indecision, the caprice, and vanity of Russell himself. Had he declined to take any part in a Government of which he was not to be the head, his position would 1 Graham, ii. 161. 2 Panmure Papers, i. 37. 3 Gladstone speaks of his conduct in Cabinet as "most capricious and unhappy” (Morley, i. 450), and Morley also quotes a notable opinion by Sir F. Baring, Attitude of Lord John 1 have been both honourable and intelligible. That it would have been highly embarrassing to the Sovereign, to his colleagues, and to the country must be admitted. Nor could he fail to perceive it. He had sufficient magnanimity to accept the sacrifice involved in the surrender of the Premiership, but not enough ever to forget that he had made it. His vacillation tried even the patience of Aberdeen. Now he would stand aside altogether; now he would take the Foreign Office with the lead of the Commons; now he would lead without portfolio. Eventually he took the Foreign Office on the understanding that when Parliament met he would surrender it to Lord Clarendon. This arrangement was carried out, and Lord John retained his seat in the Cabinet and the leadership of the House, without portfolio. Such a solution of the difficulty was open to grave constitutional objection, and the Queen was not alone in resenting it. The Sovereign bluntly expressed to Lord John himself her displeasure that "so important an innovation in the construction of the Executive Government should have been practically decided upon by an arrangement intended to meet personal wants under peculiar and accidental circumstances ".2 Nor is it possible to assert that the rebuke, though severe, was undeserved. In striking contrast to the attitude of Russell was that of Palmerston who cheerfully accepted the Home Office and did admirable work there. The other Secretaryship of State-Colonies and War-went to a Peelite, the Duke of Newcastle, and the same group supplied a Secretary at War (Mr. Sidney Herbert), a Chancellor of the Exchequer (Gladstone), a First Lord of the Admiralty (Sir James Graham), and a Privy Seal, in the person of the young Duke of Argyll. In all, therefore, the Peelites secured six places in the Cabinet, including the Premiership. The Whigs got sixLord Lansdowne, without portfolio, Lord Granville (President of the Council), Lord Cranworth (Chancellor), Sir Charles Wood (Board of Control), Lord John Russell and Sir William Molesworth (Commissioner of Works). The last named was regarded as the solitary representative of the Radical left wing; while the thirteenth member-Palmerston-stood, in a party sense, alone. The new Cabinet was exceptionally rich-perhaps over-rich 1 Despite his assurance to Graham, August, 1852: "I could not be leader in the House of Commons for a peer-premier ", 2Q.V.L. i. 533. 1855] GLADSTONE'S FIRST BUDGET 215 in administrative capacity, and several men of first-rate ability, notably Mr. Cardwell, had necessarily to be content with subordinate office, but it may be questioned whether their aggregate strength was at all equal to the sum of their individual capacities. "It is a powerful team," said Graham, “but it will require good driving. There are some odd tempers and queer ways among them, but on the whole they are gentlemen, and they have a perfect gentleman at their head, who is honest and direct and who will not brook insincerity in others." 1 The Duke of Argyll bears testimony to the fact that of all the Cabinets in which he sat none "worked more smoothly or with less individual friction "2 But England, as Disraeli shrewdly said, does not love coalitions, and the record of the Coalition of 1852 did not tend to enhance her affection. stone's A measure for the better Government of India (1853) brought Glada stage nearer the final substitution of the Crown for the Company, first Budand threw open to public competition the Indian Civil Service. A get Bill for removing Jewish disabilities was carried through the Commons, though it was rejected in the Lords, but the outstanding feature of the session of 1853 was Gladstone's first Budget. This remarkable Budget was, in the first instance, unfolded to his Cabinet colleagues in "a conversational exposition which endured without a moment's interruption for more than three hours ". Well might the Duke of Argyll refer to this performance as "by far the most wonderful effort that I ever listened to from the lips of man". Gladstone's close and pellucid argument carried conviction to his colleagues just as a week later (April 18th) it compelled the admiring assent of the House of Commons. For nearly five hours the great orator held the rapt attention of the House while he expounded the boldest financial scheme submitted to Parliament since the days of Peel. tax renewed It was, primarily, an Income Tax Budget. The for twelve months by Disraeli was about to expire. be renewed at all, and if so, under what conditions? strong agitation in favour of a differentiation in the rate of the tax according to the source of the income. Gladstone had himself inclined originally to this view, and his first business in connection with the Budget was to convince himself that such differentiation would be destructive of the vital principle of the tax. His second 2 Autobiography, i. 388. 3 Ibid., 422-423. 1 ii. 197. business was to convince the Cabinet; his third to convince the Commons. In all three tasks he was triumphantly successful. He admitted the grave defects of the income tax: its irregularity; its unpopularity; its inquisitorial character, and the temptations it offered to fraud. If the House bade him, he could and he would renounce it altogether, but he besought them "not to nibble at it"; to retain it, if at all, "in a state in which it will be fit for service in an emergency". For such emergencies it ought, in his view, to be reserved, and not to be regarded as a "permanent portion of our ordinary financial system". He proposed, therefore, to renew it for seven years-for two years at 7d., for a further two at 6d., for three years at 5d.-and to look forward to its final extinction on April 5th, 1860. Meanwhile, he refused to differentiate between the sources of income; he extended the tax to incomes between £150 and £100 a year (at the 5d. rate throughout), and he brought Ireland into the mesh. This was the first keynote of the Budget scheme. The second was the extension of the legacy duty to real property passing by Will, and to both personalty and realty passing under Settlement. A third was an increase of the duty on Scotch and Irish spirits, and a revision of certain trade licenses. From all these sources Gladstone anticipated a surplus of some £2,000,000, and, counting on this, he proceeded to a bold application of the principles he had learnt from Peel. He took 123 articles out of the customs tariff altogether, and he reduced the duty on 133 more, notably that on tea (from 2s. 24d. to 1s. per lb.). He forgave Ireland the famine-debt of £4,500,000; he repealed the excise duty on soap; he reduced the tax on life assurance from 2s. 6d. to 1s. per £100, and simplified many other taxes and duties. This Budget debate afforded, as a colleague justly remarks, one of those rare occasions on which a really fine speech not only decides the fate of a Government, but enlightens the mind of a people and determines for an indefinite time to come the course of national legislation ". In one sense Gladstone's scheme never got its chance. He budgeted for seven years of peace, and assumed that no increase of expenditure would be demanded. His prescience was not equal to his courage. In another sense the long view was justified; the scheme stood the unforeseen test uncommonly well; the underlying principles proved their adaptability to 1 Argyll, i. 430. 1855] THE CRIMEAN WAR 217 altered circumstances, and although the 5th of April, 1860, did not witness the final extinction of the income tax, and though some may deplore the increasing reliance upon taxes which tend to the dispersion of capital, the fact remains that the nation emerged financially unscathed from the Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny. Into these troubled waters we must now plunge. mean War There are two conflicting views as to the origin of the diffi- The Criculties which issued in the Crimean War. Queen Victoria ascribed -its it to the "selfishness and ambition of one man (the Czar Nicholas) cause and his servants," 1 Kinglake holds Napoleon III. primarily responsible. Neither view can be accepted in its naked simplicity, though in each there is a large element of truth. Napoleon III., if not the primary cause of the war, was at least the immediate firebrand in the Eastern conflagration. By a treaty of 1740 France had obtained from Turkey the custody of several of the Holy Places in and near Jerusalem. The Latins became neglectful of their rights in the latter part of the eighteenth century, and the guardianship fell to Greek monks. In May, 1850, however, Louis Napoleon anxious to conciliate the support of the Clericals in France, asserted his right to place Latin monks in possession of the Holy Places. This demand was supported by Austria, Spain, and other Roman Catholic powers, and after some delay it was, in substance, conceded by the Sultan. The concession roused bitter resentment in the mind of the Czar Nicholas, whose dignity was already outraged by the establishment of the democratic Empire in France. Not for the first time the Porte found itself between the upper and the nether millstone, and, in order to escape from that embarrassing situation, the Sultan played an old diplomatic trick. His decision on the points at issue was embodied in a letter to the French Chargé d'affairs, and in a Firman addressed to the Greek patriarch at Jerusalem. The language of the two documents was not identical in the letter, stress was laid upon the substantial concessions to France; the Firman dwelt upon the claims denied. In the upshot, France was satisfied, Russia was not. Accordingly, in March, 1853, the Czar despatched to Constantinople a rough and overbearing soldier, Prince Menschikoff, who was charged not only to obtain full satisfaction about the Holy Places, but to 1Q.V.L. iii. 25. : |